Stop Forcing It

My therapist recommended that I read When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön, and honestly, the first chapter hit me harder than I anticipated.

She opens with the idea that when life starts to unravel, our first reaction is often to panic. To fix. To force things back into place. To regain a sense of control. But that panic, that urge to hold everything together; what if it’s actually keeping us from growing?

She writes about fear not as something to avoid or overcome, but something to lean into. That resisting the discomfort just causes more suffering. And that’s real. I see it every day, with clients, in my own life, in the pressure we put on ourselves to move on, push through, or "figure it out" quickly.

So many of us are uncomfortable with the unknown. We force conversations that aren’t ready to be had. We rush healing because we’re tired of being in pain. We try to push forward when life is clearly asking us to slow down.

But maybe the invitation isn’t to fix anything right now. Maybe it’s to be present, with the fear, the confusion, the in-between. To stop labeling discomfort as a problem, and start seeing it as part of the process.

What if nothing is wrong?What if this pause, this unraveling, is exactly where the shift begins?

Chapter 1 reminded me that there’s strength in surrendering. That letting go isn’t the same as giving up. That we don’t have to force clarity, sometimes it arrives when we finally get quiet.

If you’re in a season where things feel uncertain, where you’re tempted to force your way forward, take a breath.You don’t have to have it all figured out.Things are allowed to fall apart.You’re allowed to not know.

And maybe what’s falling apart is clearing space for what’s meant to come next.